I say this in my introduction to our Global Digital Reports every year, but the past twelve months really have seen impressive growth across all things digital. This year’s collection of 230+ reports reveals some striking new numbers in countries all across the globe, with developing economies showing some particularly strong growth.

The big story in this year’s data is the accelerating growth in internet users. More than 360 million people came online for the first time during 2018, at an average rate of more than 1 million new users each day. 57 percent of the world’s population is now connected to the internet, with trends indicating that all of the original ‘Next Billion Users’ are now online.

We’re spending significant amounts of time online, too. The average internet user now spends more than 61⁄2 hours online each day, meaning that the world’s digital

community will spend a combined total of more than 1.2 billion years using the internet in 2019.

Social media continues to account for the greatest share of that time, and the average user spends more time on social today than they did this time last year. The number of social media users around the world has increased by more than 280 million since January 2018, but there have also been some user declines across some of the world’s top social platforms. To help you make sense of this changing social landscape, we’ve included detailed data by platform across all of our reports.

Mobile users grew by a more modest 100 million over the past year, but that slower growth is perhaps to be expected, given that two-thirds of the world’s population already uses a mobile. However, mobile has helped fuel strong growth in e-commerce over the past year, with m-commerce and mobile wallets playing an increasingly important role in the lives of people all across the globe.

This year’s reports also take a closer look at some of the more recent additions to the digital landscape, including the growing use of voice control, and public adoption of cryptocurrencies.

Best of all, we’re making this year’s full collection of 5,000+ charts available for free. You’ll find details of how to download everything over the next few pages, but be sure to check out the links to our wonderful data partners at the end of this report to find even more rich data and insights.

But with that, let’s get stuck into the numbers. Here’s to another year of impressive digital growth in 2019!

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